


time has come (for you and i)

by michaelsc0fields



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: AU, Cassie is sent back from the past to find Dr James Cole and stop the virus, Character Death is a canon one, F/M, I guess this kind of landed on theme week?, Role Reversal, but it was an accident, casserole day too!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-24 00:38:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7486485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/michaelsc0fields/pseuds/michaelsc0fields
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Look!” She says, scratching a thin line down the face of the watch she is carrying. He stares wide eyed as the one around his wrist glows and forms a matching mark. </p><p>He’s lost for words until she jerks as a bullet hits and then, ha, okay, this he can handle, injuries and wounds, yep, this is his normality and he wants to focus in on it to avoid thinking too hard about what he just witnessed.</p><p>But she doesn’t grant him that, only spits out a date and a place then disappears into thin air, leaving him kneeling at the roadside with her blood still warm on his hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	time has come (for you and i)

**Author's Note:**

> so this is just snippets of s1 rewritten as though cassie was sent back from 2043 and cole is a doctor in 2015. 
> 
> it's not a word for word rewrite as i've tried to keep everything within character (eg, cassie stopped cole from telling her about his past to talk about the mission - here cassie begins to tell cole her past then notices the mission prep and focuses on that even though cole would rather hear more about her).
> 
> i don't own 12 monkeys but i do own this fic and i hope you enjoy it!

The woman has wide eyes, eyes that are panicked and wild and remind him of the ones he’s seen on the families of patients who have witnessed things they never wanted to see their loved ones go through. Her hair is matted and tangled under the cap she has pulled down low over her head, streaked through with dust which also dusts her cheekbones and has settled in her eyebrows.

Dr James Cole notices all of this even as she holds a weapon to him and tugs him out of his car as gunshots fire around them.

“Look!” She says, scratching a thin line down the face of the watch she is carrying. He stares wide eyed as the one around his wrist glows and forms a matching mark. 

He’s lost for words until she jerks as a bullet hits and then, ha, okay, this he can handle, injuries and wounds, yep, this is his normality and he wants to focus in on it to avoid thinking too hard about what he just witnessed.

But she doesn’t grant him that, only spits out a date and a place then disappears into thin air, leaving him kneeling at the roadside with her blood still warm on his hands.

-

Cole doesn’t know why he’s here.

He’s a man of medicine, of science, of rational and logical thought.

He’s sipping a whisky sour at the bar of a grand hotel, waiting for the crazy blonde woman to appear out of thin air and explain what the hell happened exactly two years ago.

Aaron is right. He needs to go to counselling.

This whole thing is clearly post-traumatic stress from the kidnapping, the totally normal (normal as a kidnapping can be), linear, real-life-not-science-fiction kidnapping.

But then there’s a commotion at the stairs and she’s there, clutching her abdomen as security guards try to force her to stop.

“She’s with me!” 

-

“You look beautiful.” He compliments her, and she does. She might be a crazy woman from the future with scabbed over knuckles, but a good shower has cleared the dirt that hid her bright complexion and untangled the matted blonde hair that now pours over her shoulders in golden curls. 

Cassie blinks, clearly taken aback. Her hands smooth over the borrowed dress, both rearranging it and wiping the sweat from her palms. “Thanks. You look…” She struggles for a word and he finds he can’t really offer her some – handsome? Smart? – because then it seems a bit big-headed and he is getting more and more conscious of the fact he wants her to have a good opinion of him. “Clean.”

He’ll take it.

-

They’d argued last time she splintered here, but Cole had pushed it out of his mind and got to work frantically, using every resource he could find to try pinpoint their search as much as he possibly could.

“Cole?” Cassie’s voice comes through the door and he crosses to open it, ready to impart the knowledge he has found, although he pauses at the intense look she is giving him when he sees her properly. 

She follows him in, hesitantly speaking. “I was thinking… about what you said, and… um.” She frowns at herself. “Baltimore. There’s a little place, not far from the CDC actually, that’s where I…” 

Cole waits with his breath held, desperate for any morsel that she will offer him about her life. He wants to know her so badly, even though he knows it’s going to end in heartbreak – the more he knows, the more he’s going to lose when she splinters away indefinitely. 

“Is this what I think it is?” She asks, marching forward to his papers and his shoulders drop. For a moment, she was willing to let him in, but now it’s back to business.

-

It’s been two years since she ‘died’ on the phone to him and Cole is so very, very tired. But he has to hold out. He wants to see her. He has to.

“Cole?” He turns to see her, ignoring the dizziness it brings on because the sight of her, a little banged up but here and alive and still ignorant of so much that has transpired between them, spreads a warmth through him that if bottled would stop the plague in its tracks. 

“Cassie.” He breathes out, using the desk as a support to cross the room to her. Cassie meets him half way, tucking her face into his shoulder and twining her arms around his waist so tightly it takes a little of his breath away. It actually hurts, with the virus ravaging his lungs, but he refuses to complain because she is warm and solid and there in his arms, her hair knotted as he runs his fingers through it gently.

He can’t tell her much, only passes along Jones’ address because he’s going to need it soon, two years ago, trying to hold on for as long as possible. 

“Cole?” Cassie rests a hand on his shoulder, concerned, when he starts coughing and can’t seem to stop. She lets out a panicked noise as his knees buckle. She’s strong, but not strong enough to stop him collapsing to the floor, although she does her best to rearrange them so he’s resting against her, the slight upwards tilt helping to bring rattling breaths to his failing lungs. 

He’s confused for a moment – where is he? When is he? He babbles at Cassie, who looks down at him with tears in her eyes as she tries to make sense of the timeline he is presenting her with. 

“Cass,” His voice cracks and one of her tears drops down onto his white doctor’s coat. “I don’t want to be alone… when I…”

She shakes her head vigorously, cradling him to her and smoothing over his hair, his forehead, his cheekbones soothingly, her touch so gentle for someone who was so wild when he met her. “You’re not, you’re not, I’m here, Cole. I’m here.”

He never feels the kiss she presses to his forehead, already gone as his body goes limp and his hand falls to the floor.

-

It’s been two weeks since she ‘died’ on the phone to him and she’s at the door of the shop. He can feel the anger vibrating off Aaron behind him, knows his best friend wants what’s best and wants this whole thing to be over, but Cassie is looking at him like she’s seen a ghost, her gaze haunted as she reaches out and brushes her hand over his cheek.

“It’s not over?” He asks, not questioning her new touchy-feely nature because actually he quite enjoys her fingertips running down his jaw as she gazes at him with wonder in her eyes.

She swallows hard, pushes the tears back and shakes her head. No.

-

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve told you about Ramse, right?” Cassie answers his question with a question.

Ah yes, Ramse, her childhood friend. Cole always gets a nasty feeling of jealousy that he attempts to squash down to the very pit of his stomach whenever he is mentioned, which is stupid and he knows it’s stupid, but he also knows that Cassandra is beautiful and smart and capable of so much compassion that he never expected and she has someone in 2043 waiting for her. She’s never said it’s romantic, just that they have a strong bond, but still he’s a man with uncharted feelings for the woman slumped beside him, who only gets to see one sliver of the mystery that is her life. 

“You’ve been friends forever. You’re like… soulmates or something.” He recites, a little dully.

She laughs unexpectedly at that and he warms that he was the one who brought that out in her.

-

“I love these things.” He announces seriously as he presents her with one of the many skewers he swiped from the tray of a passing waiter. 

Cassie eyes it warily, sniffing and taking a delicate nibble before scrunching up her nose. Apparently his love in this area is not shared.

She turns to look at the bustling dance floor and he can see her shoulders rise and fall in a sigh of happiness that she thinks he won’t notice. But he always notices.

“I love this.” He admits as he steps up to her, discarding his beloved skewers on another tray. “The atmosphere, the music…”

She glances across at him with that happy-but-sad expression she gets sometimes, the one when the weight of the world is on her shoulders, which, he supposes, it kind of is. “I’ve never seen anything so… Anything like this.” She tells him. “It’s so… Cole.” She turns fully to him. “Let’s just – forget it. For one night. Let’s just… be us.”

His heart swells. He knows the mission is important, so important, but a night off with Cassie is too tempting to pass up. She’s always to focussed on the fate of the world that she forgets to remember the fate of herself and the strain all of this is putting on her.

Cole makes a snap decision. “Let’s dance.”

Her eyes widen as he catches her waist and leads them onto the dancefloor. “I don’t know how to…” She protests and he grins.

“Me neither!” 

-

She’s sweating and bleeding and yeah pretty much dying in his arms as he gathers her up on the couch of the bookshop, tucking blankets around her to try ward off the shivers wracking her body as he holds pressure onto the wound in her side. Her face is grey, her hair damp as she shakes against him.

“It’s Ramse.” Cassie gasps out and he is about to tell her to be quiet, save her strength, when it hits him what she actually just said. “He’s the Witness.”

He wraps her up in his arms before she can say anything more, holding her frail body to him as his mind races.

-

Katarina eyes him from the kitchen of the bookstore as he fusses over Cassie. He can feel her gaze watching him as he cups her neck to help her take a sip of water, smooths hair away from her sweaty forehead, waits until she dozes off again before letting out a heavy breath.

“She’s my friend.” He snaps defensively a while later.

“She’s more than that. To you.” Katarina says sagely.

-

He dreams of a little girl with blonde ringlets and wide blue eyes clinging to his neck as he races through alleyways while gunshots burst behind them.

He opens his eyes to find her watching him. He blinks, then smiles slowly at the sight of her curled up opposite him. 

She returns it warmly, then gets up to hunt his best friend down.

-

“Stop, no, please!” Cassie is stood between him and Ramse with her hands outstretched to both of them. 

Cole trains his gun on the bastard, the one who is going to release the plague, ruin the future, cause his death and, most despicably, break Cassie’s heart again. This is a man who stabbed the woman he cares for, who betrayed her and hurt her.

He knows there’s a guard with a gun on him, but really, getting shot as he saves the human race would not be the end of the world.

He ignores Cassie’s pleas and squeezes the trigger and then there’s fire licking up his side, burning pain that he’s never experienced before flaring as he stumbles forward and drops his gun and then Cassie’s there, her small, strong frame struggling to support him as she drags him so he’s against the weird machine in the centre of the room, her hands scrabbling for his shirt and then it dawns on him – he’s been shot.

With a groan, he reaches behind him and feels the unmarred expanse of his back.

“No exit wound.” He gasps and Cassie’s face is lit up with worry and panic as she tries to stop the bleeding. A wave of pain overtakes him and he zones out but he can hear Ramse speaking and then Cassie is gone from above him and he misses the pressure of her against him already.

Then she’s back and there’s a pricking sensation at his elbow that barely scratches the surface as he struggles against the searing pain of the bullet. Then his good side is being yanked up, Cassie appearing under his arm with a grunt as she tries to carry his body weight enough to roll him not entirely gracefully onto the slab of metal in the centre of the machine. 

And then through the haze of pain is her face, her beautiful face, so much cleaner and brighter than when he first met her thanks to the paradox that fixed all the pain she was going through, but screwed up with fear and worry, tears dripping onto his cheeks from hers, in their own private moment curtained by golden blonde as her hair falls between them.

“I’ll see you soon,” She says softly, brushing his overlong hair out of his eyes so gently that it almost feels wrong with her calloused and rough hands but it doesn’t because any time Cassie touches him, even now as he is wracked with unspeakable pain, it feels so, so right. 

But he is going to die because he is a doctor and he knows that gunshot wounds like this one are fatal without immediate assistance. 

He swallows. “Goodbye.”


End file.
